Genetic Lie, Genetic Lines
by allred12
Summary: Leah gets schooled in genetics with some help from Seth.


Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

Genetic Lie, Genetic Line

I was sitting on the couch flexing and pointing my toes, watching the muscles go from long and taught to squashed and thick. I think it would be safe to assume that I was bored out of my mind. It was summer. Three years ago, I would have thought summer to be the definition of freedom, now I just felt like a prisoner in my own home. I was _actually_ missing the days when my job was to monitor the Cullen's house and run its perimeter. I, Leah Clearwater, actually wanted to hang out with vampires.

The front door opened, and I heard someone put books on the table and slip out of their shoes. "Leah, I'm home" my fifteen year old brother said. He was in summer school because apparently missing days of class so that you could protect your entire tribe from a group of super evil blood suckers wasn't enough reason for an 'excused absence', and also my dork of a brother actually liked his classes.

"Cool, awesome. When you have some radioactive monsters for me to kill, then you can actually call my name", I said. I was bored, but that didn't mean I couldn't think fast and insult my little brother. It was technically my duty to make sure his life didn't become too pleasant.

"Glad to see you too. Wait for me to eat something and then I have something I want to show you", he said. I heard him ruffling around in the kitchen and prepared to get comfortable. When Seth began to eat, it usually took a while for him to finish eating.

My peace was short lived. A few minutes later, Seth came into the living room with a plate and two ham sandwiches on it. He was also carrying a giant roll of paper under his armpit. He took a bite of his sandwich and started talking: "I had some project for my genetics class, and I thought you might want to see it."

"I might be a little more interested in seeing it, if I wasn't seeing the food in your mouth."

"Sorry", he said as he swallowed. He began to unroll the paper, and on it were tons of boxes and lines. The boxes had clearly been made with a ruler along with the lines that connected them, but the writing inside the boxes was unreadable, as was pretty much everything that Seth wrote down. "It's a family tree."

"I can see that, I'm not a moron."

"Well I was just clarifying. My teacher made me read it aloud. But that's not the cool part, I made it tracking are family and I tracked the werewolf gene all the way back to our great-great grandfather, and I followed the gene through the different color dots", Seth said as he tried to flatten the paper, spilling some sandwich crumbs in the process.

"Wait, you told your _teacher_ about the werewolf gene!" I accused.

"No, I told the teacher that it was supernumerary nipple syndrome that a lot of people I knew had." "What the hell?" "It means you have a third nipple." "Oh great, so now your teacher thinks that everyone in the wolf pack has a third nipple?" "Well, yeah, I thought it was better than the truth", Seth said, trying not to look at me. "Everyone is going to want to kill you when they find out. . ." "Will you just shut up, I want to show you something cool", he said in a fairly authoritative voice. What a nerd. "Fine", I huffed.

"Ok, so I traced our family back all the way to our great-great grandfather's. Then I added in all the werewolves and knew that they had to have the gene for it, or as Carlisle said the extra chromosome. Then, I traced where the gene came from based on everyone's parents and stuff. And look here, Jake has the genetic material coming from two sources, and look at him as a wolf. He is the biggest and the strongest; he's more of a wolf than the rest of us, arguably because he has more genetic material."

"You know, I am really worried this, you have yet another male crush, and this one is on our alpha so you aren't going to be able to hide it", I said. God, my brother was so weird. He actually liked this creepy genetic shit.

"Whatever, I didn't even get to the good part yet. Look at our boxes", he pointed to two boxes. "We have three colors in our boxes; our werewolf gene comes from three sources, there are more colors than any other werewolf. So if we go with the theory that more genetic material makes us smarter and better, than that kind of explains why you are the first girl to become a wolf. Your extra genes have more stuff than the rest of the wolves."

I looked at him for a second and then thought of a point that didn't work so well "Yeah Sherlock, but then shouldn't you be stronger and a lot better of a wolf than Jacob". I wanted his theory to work out, because then there was a reason for why I was who I am.

"Whatever, so it's not perfect. But I'm also younger than Jacob, so I could still be developing", Seth said with a slight frown on his face. "I don't know, I'm only in high school, I'm not a freakin' geneticist", he mumbled.

We both sat on the couch silently, both of us staring at the messy family tree. It was a great idea, but if it didn't work out, then I was right back where I started, not really knowing where I was, what me being a wolf.

"Do you want to go for a run?" Seth suddenly asked.

It only took me a second to think about it, I really wasn't one to miss out on a chance to beat my brother at a race. "Absolutely", I said with a crooked grin. We both jumped up and ran out the door. I went behind a bush and slid off my shorts and tank top then focused of phasing. In the blink of an eye, I had gone from being a tall Native American girl to a big, furry, gray wolf.

_You ready to run, Lee?_

_You bet your furry ass. _I thought back. We began to run.

_Can you let me lead, just this one time?_ Seth asked. It was a weird request, he usually always let me lead because he knew it made me happy.

_Sure, sure_ I mumbled. I wasn't going to fight with my brother when I was getting fresh air for the first time all day.

As we ran, Seth's thoughts were on anything but where he was going, which I thought was a little weird. He was running through the periodic table, like I said before, he is such a dork. He was missing some of the elements so I graciously filled them in for him when he tripped in his mental thinking.

I wasn't really paying attention to where we were going, he was after all, my brother and I was under the misguided impression that I could trust him. I did kind of realize that we were leaving the res, but I wasn't too concerned. That was until we began to follow Rt. 101 a little bit. _Seth, where are we going?_

_Nowhere, I thought that we would just, you know, kind of run around where ever the wind blew us. _

I grumbled a little, but decided not to complain. I was in a relatively happy mood for me and an ok mood for a normal person. And I trusted my brother to not take me anywhere dangerous. I just kept thinking to myself, until I began to smell an extremely familiar smell.

_Seth, why the hell are you taking me to see the Cullen's?_

_No reason._

_I'm leaving. _

_No, you can't! They already smelled us, and I told Jake we were coming. It would be so rude if we ditched now. _

_I really don't give a rat's ass about being rude. _

_Come on, please Leah. I'm doing this for you mostly. _

_What are you doing for me?_

_Will you just shut up and be compliant for once in your life. _

_Big words don't sway me little brother. _

_Please. _

I once again mumbled my agreement, but this was mean, and cruel, and a million other things that brothers were not supposed to be to their sisters. He was taking me to see our damned natural enemies for god's sake. He was such a weird brother. I swear that mom and dad must've dropped him on his head, like a lot.

Jake greeted us at the front door of the Cullen's house. He had been spending way too much time here ever since Nessie had been born. I mean it was understandable, but it certainly wasn't appreciated.

"I can't believe you actually got her to come", he laughed as he saw us run into view.

I growled once then went behind a tree to phase. I definitely didn't like not being in wolf form when I was around the Cullen's, but I guess I thought that my two fellow pack members were going to make me phase any way and it was better to just do it voluntarily on my own time.

"She didn't have a choice. No woman can deny my charm", Seth said as he came out half-dressed from the trees. He was also carrying the rolled up family tree under his arm again. I hadn't noticed that he had brought it with him.

"Yeah whatever, will someone please tell me why I am here? You both have exactly seven point eight seconds to tell me why I was forced the whole way out here."

"Your brother wants to share his theory with the good doctor", Jake said blatantly.

"WHAT THE HELL", I screamed at Seth. This was not fair.

"Come on Leah. I'm not a scientist, and Carlisle has like hundreds of years of learning about this stuff. And maybe he can explain it better than I can", Seth pleaded with me.

Almost as soon as Seth had said Carlisle's name, the pale doctor appeared at the porch next to Jacob. My alpha didn't even flinch at the proximity of a vampire. What a fearless leader.

"Fine, it appears that I don't have a choice any way." I reluctantly stepped into the Cullen's house. I had been in there several times since the un-battle battle, mostly to force Jake home hours after the sun went down so his dad didn't die of, like, having no food. It certainly wasn't my job to take care of Billy Black.

We made our way to the dining room that was just for show. Seth and Carlisle greeted each other kindly, like best friends. I just gave a curt nod to doctor leech. Within minutes, we were settled around the table with Seth's stupid school project spread out. I was sitting as far away as I could from Carlisle who was at the head of the table, so I was sitting on Jacob's right side. Seth was explaining his theory again to Carlisle, except he was talking about it in some bigger words that I totally didn't understand. And I'm pretty sure that Seth left out the part about the third nipple.

Carlisle was looking at the family tree and thinking hard. I didn't know if he was trying to read the handwriting or actually considering Seth's theory. Jake was sitting at the table, and he seemed to be paying attention to Seth too. When did everyone I know suddenly get so smart? I really needed to look into finding a college.

"I think you could be right, Seth. It makes sense. If the werewolf gene isn't just a dominant trait, then having two parents who are carriers would make the werewolves of the next generation stronger and larger and better wolves. It's a completely new chromosomal pair that is added to your genetic material. I haven't really gotten to examine a karyotype yet, but if I could take some blood from both you and Leah to compare to Jake's I could really get some interesting information. If you are correct and looking at your family tree, if Paul and Rachel were to have any daughters and there were vampires around, then those daughters could very easily be like Leah."

I began to pay attention then, mostly because I had heard my name so much, and I was also really interested. There was a chance that there could be more girl wolves? It was an interesting thought. "What about—um—me?" I asked looking at Carlisle.

Seth looked at me strangely, but Jacob gave me a kind, emphatic glance. Carlisle responded tentatively: "Well, it could mean that your changing into a wolf, since it isn't a sex linked chromosome, does not make you infertile. It could just be that you, like your brother and Jake to an extent, have an abundance of the genetic material necessary for making wolves. It could almost act as a hormone, which I have always suspected because the first phasing occurs with the onset of puberty. So, in a female carrier, they do not have enough of the genetic material for the phasing to be onset with puberty, but in a female like you, that has more than the average amount of genetic material for the wolf gene, then it could be activated during puberty, having nothing to do with your reproductive abilities."

I didn't understand most of what the doctor said, but I got the important gist of it. There was a possibility that my square on that family tree would not be the last one for that branch. I was pretty damn happy, but I certainly didn't want to show that to a vampire.

"I'm going to need to take some blood samples though so I can get a karyotype for both of you and compare it to Jacob's, and I would love to get some from someone who didn't have two carriers for parents because then. . ." he trailed off.

I wanted to say something snide about the vamp doc asking for blood, by I figured that that wasn't the best move to pull on the guy that had just given me some pretty damn good news. So, for once in my life, I kept my trap shut.

Seth and I both didn't mind when Carlisle ran upstairs in lightning fast speed then was back with two needles and two vials. And we were fine when he pierced the thin layer of skin between our forearms and upper arms. It barely took thirty seconds for the tiny pin pricks to heal.

In all honesty, I could say that I wasn't at all angry at my brother (or my alpha for that matter) for dragging me for an impromptu Dr.'s appointment.

Two weeks later, Jacob told Seth and me that Carlisle wanted to talk to us, the next chance we got. I convinced Seth that we needed to wait at least a day to see him.

"Seth, I know you really want to call him. But if you want a boy to call you back, it's crucial that you don't seem desperate", I said when Seth told me the news.

That got me a pillow in the face and the remote shoved into my gut. Which was no way to treat a lady, thank you very much.

We went the Cullen's place again the next day. Carlisle showed Jake, Seth and I our karyotypes laid out next to each other, and he showed some normal human ones too. He explained it really nice like, he didn't use too many big words at all. I thought that was really nice of him.

He told us that he saw a difference in the proteins in the blood, perhaps contributing to the fact that the werewolf gene was acting like, or in response to hormones. He also told all three of us that our genetic material was identical to that of a human, except for the extra chromosomal pair. He said that he had to study it more, but that the extra pair that Seth and I had was shaped slightly different that Jake's chromosomes which probably meant that Seth's theory was right. I was a little bit surprised that my fifteen year old brother had made an accurate hypothesis about a real life medical thing. Who knew, maybe he would end up as a doctor?

We all thanked Carlisle before we left. I was the last out the door. Carlisle whispered my name so only I could here, and I stayed back to talk to him.

"Leah. I didn't see anything wrong in your chromosomes, genetically speaking; you are as capable as any other women to have children. That's not really a hundred percent sure answer. I could tell if you allowed me to do a physical exam: that would be a much surer way to know, but I completely understand if you don't want to do that."

I felt awkward, but I didn't want to say yes and I didn't want to say no "I'll think about it", I told him, and then I said goodbye and made my way home.

When I was lying up in bed that night, I seriously thought about what Carlisle had said. Of course there was a sure way to know, but it was really all dependent on me. I had taken a huge step by allowing Carlisle to exam my genes, but could I really take it a step further? I didn't know the answer. Outside, I looked healthy, I looked completely normal and healthy, but for the rest of the wolves and me, genetics lied. It showed us to be normal, but just one extra chromosomal pair made all the difference. But could it make the largest difference of all? Despite that extra pair, could I not be the end of my own genetic line?


End file.
